Rev. William Barbertag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-13574942013-07-20T05:03:30-04:00President, North Carolina NAACPTypePadBattle for the Soul of America: The Third Reconstructiontag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c5a0553ef01901e5aad1e970b2013-07-20T05:03:30-04:002013-07-20T05:03:30-04:00Watch This on YouTube.comBuie Knife

Rev. Barber in the news, including video clipstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c5a0553ef013487297fa6970c2010-09-09T10:51:03-04:002010-09-09T10:51:03-04:00Rev. William Barber, videos on YouTube.com. Rev. William Barber in the news. Rev. William Barber in the news.Buie Knife

Our Position on Diversity in Public Education in Wake Countytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c5a0553ef0120a6a9538f970c2009-11-04T15:48:19-05:002009-11-04T15:48:19-05:00When we, especially us in the South, get bogged down in political and emotional debates about whether or not we should have diversity in our public schools . . . Whether we should be segregated or integrated? . . ....Buie Knife

When we, especially us in the South, get bogged down in political and emotional debates about whether or not we should have diversity in our public schools . . .

Whether we should be segregated or integrated? . . .

Whether we should have high concentrations of poverty in certain schools?. . .

Whether we should have high concentrations of one race or another in certain schools?

Maybe we should be reminded of the dark and ugly past, the road we’ve come from and not want to return to in any form or fashion.

I want you to listen to the final words of the General Counsel of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshal. Close your eyes as he closed his argument before the Supreme Court, 56 years ago. He was arguing for our children, who walked by their neighborhood schools to go to the segregated colored schools across town. He was arguing against the failed philosophy that had been the law of the land since 1896. The Separate but Equal policy. Marshall spoke of the strangeness of the thinking that under-girded the policy of segregation . . . of anti-diversity.

“Those same kids in Virginia and South Carolina—and I have seen them doit—they play in the streets together, they play on their farms together,they go down the road together, they separate to go to school, they come outof school and play ball together. They have to be separated in school.

There is some magic to it. You can have them voting together, you can havethem not restricted because of law in the houses they live in. You can havethem going to the same state university and the same college, but if they goto elementary and high school, the world will fall apart.

So whichever way it is done, the only way this Court can decide this case inopposition to our position, is that there must be some reason which givesthe state the right to make a classification that they can make in regard tonothing else in regard to Negroes, and we submit the only way to arrive atthis decision is to find that for some reason Negroes are inferior to allother human beings.

Nobody will stand in the Court and urge that. And in order to arrive at thedecision that they want us to arrive at, there would have to be somerecognition of a reason why of all of the multitudinous groups of people in

this country you have to single out Negroes and give them this separate treatment. We submit, that this Court should make it clear that that is not what our Constitution stands for.”

The NAACP won that argument. The old policy of segregated schools was outlawed in 1954.

Now, here we are in Wake County 55 years later. 55 years of blood, and sweat, and the tears of children and their parents—walking through screaming mobs, having human excrement and spit and venomous words thrown at us.

Knowing our past, what we ought to be saying, especially in regards to our children whether by race or class, we demand in our public schools diversity and integration. Diversity today. Diversity tomorrow. Diversity forever.

The framing of the current political debate by the opponents of diversity is to ask whether we want neighborhood schools and busing is wrong. It’s a trick. It’s a ploy.

First, the use of code words like ‘neighborhood schools’ and ‘busing’ is the old “N-word” politics cleaned up with euphemisms taken directly out of Richard Nixon’s southern strategy play book. Stir up old racial fears.

I would have more respect of the opponents of diversity if they would just openly say they want segregated schools. They don’t want their children around certain other children based on race or class. Put it out there straight, rather than using code words.

The whole world is becoming more diverse. From the Presidency of the United States to the daily streets we walk on. What we need is not to be afraid of God’s beautiful and diverse world. We need to embrace even more diversity.

Secondly, their notion of neighborhood school is too narrow. Wake County is our neighborhood. Not just a few houses in your immediate area. The fact is, all of our financial capital and human capital benefits the entire county and no one block or one set of children means more than any other block or children.

Thirdly, what we ought to be talking about is constitutional schools. The federal constitution says that separate but equal is unconstitutional. The state constitution says that every child has a right to a sound education. What we should be doing. . . rather than fighting the diversity policy . . . is standing together, making an even deeper commitment that we are to eliminating high poverty, racially identified schools and packing all poor children into the most under-funded, most segregated, most children from poor families, schools.

You and I here tonight know that when children are packed into the most underfunded, most segregated, most high poverty schools it is nothing but a form of institutionalized child abuse. It is noble for the current Wake County policy to promote diversity and to stand against high poverty schools. Itis a nightmare for John Tedesco and the rest of his anti-diversity slate to hijack the school board to move away from this noble goal.

The truth is the people who use the ploy of neighborhood schools and busing as a wedge issue to divide us. Their vision is too small. Their compassion is too limited. Their purpose is too narrow. Their heart is too selfish. And their motives are too rooted in a past which all of America—including the old slave states that tried to leave America to maintain slavery—want to leave behind.

Racial resegregation and high poverty-concentration in our schools not only separates our children, it separates our budgets, our buildings, our basic needs for developing an educational environment conducive to every child’s development.

The truth of the matter is what is at stake Tuesday, Election Day, November 3rd, and beyond is whether we want an American school system here in Wake County. An American schools system will follow the American Constitution. And the North Carolina Constitution.

Do we want to abandon the Constitutions and the limited progress for a return to resegregated high poverty schools, which discriminate and undermine commitment to fundamental high quality education?

I know this election cycle has been confusing but don’t let the confusion keep you from making a full commitment to save our Children, save our school, and save our diversity. We called this meeting tonight to ask you to do something.

1. Be at the polls on Tuesday, and vote against the anti-diversity andResegragation policies. Let is be known that there is a constituency that will not go away quietly.

2. Be a part of building every branch of the NAACP in this county toat least 500 members so we can have an army of activists--black, white,and brown-- who will counter this regressive policy onslaught against ourchildren. Some have said the election will be over Tuesday. But we in thecivil rights community have never based our principles or agenda on oneelection. Even when we've been in the minority and seemly didn't have thevotes we have changed America and changed this State. Our energy. . .ourengagement. . . and our efforts will not end on Tuesday no matter what theoutcome of the election.

3. Be prepared to litigate. This is a call we have made all acrossNC, we are invigorated. The NAACP is ready for a fresh battle to demand in every county a constitutional education. Armed with the federal constitutional, state constitutional, and the Civil Rights Act, we will challenge every policy that we believe is a violation of the promise of a constitutional education.

4. We will file a Title VI complaint in another county soon. Our Legal Redress Chair has already been in contact of our Nation Legal Staff about the possibility to engage right here in Wake County.

5. Be at every school board meeting. It is time for Wake County to Wake up. We cannot for the sake of our children allow a few to drag our policies to a place that under minds educational opportunity for all.

So for those who thought in a off year election they could win a few seats and swing back the pendulum of history with the backwards anti-diversity, segregated policies of the past, let me be clear. Instead of killing our spirits you have sparked a new beginning. You have

Caused us to sound a new rallying cry.

Forced us black, white, and brown who believe in freedom, justice and equality to get fired up and ready to go all over again.

On Health Care Reform, We Need a Healingtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c5a0553ef0120a605511a970c2009-09-30T16:27:32-04:002009-09-30T16:48:09-04:00Full text of Rev. Dr. William J. Barber’s Speech at Health Reform Rally at State Capitol in Raleigh, August 29, 2009. If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves, pray and turn from their wicked ways...Buie Knife

Full text of Rev. Dr. William J. Barber’s Speech at Health Reform Rally at State Capitol in Raleigh, August 29, 2009.

If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves, pray and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and heal the land. (2d Chronicles 7:14)

We are here today because we need a healing in the land. We need those who want to perpetuate a sick health care system that is not for everybody and does not cover everybody to turn from their wicked ways. We are here today because we need a healing in the land.

It is ironic that 74 years ago in this same month of August, President Franklin Roosevelt was fighting to secure and sign the Social Security Act. Even then, the precursors of today’s forces of greed, selfishness, fear, and division were fighting him, and fighting reform and progressivism in America. They called it “socialism.” That’s what they said about Social Security. They said it would break America. They said that everybody should not be included.

In fact, these attacks weakened the first Social Security Act. The forces of greed, selfishness, fear, and division fought so hard, and bought so many souls, they forced coverage for the mostly Black, Hispanic and poor domestic and farm workers to be taken out of the Act before it was passed. It took 19 long years for these Americans to finally be covered when they turned 65 –if they made it to 65.

The forces of greed, selfishness, fear, and division have a long history of promoting a divided America. They are good at it. They are loud at it. And they are consistent at it.

But today we gather to say they have had their say. Now it is time for us who believe in a United America, a caring America, a compassionate America to speak up.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I was born 2 days after the March on Washington, 46 years ago on yesterday. That was a triumphant day. That was a day when a prophet named Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. laid out a challenge to these same forces in the nation’s capital. He challenged the forces who were saying the call for justice and jobs and equality would cost too much for America. Dr. King said on that triumphant day, as we must say now, we refuse to believe that the great vaults of this nation are bankrupt. And today I say, we refuse to believe that we cannot pay for a just health care system.

The forces of greed, selfishness, fear and division can not have it both ways. When they demand more tax cuts for the wealthy that don’t need it, somehow they always find the money.

When they want to bail out Wall Street’s bankers and pay the extravagant CEO’s billion dollar bonuses with taxpayer’s dollars, they can always find the money.

When they want to follow in lock step the leadership of a President who led us into an immoral and unnecessary war, they found trillions of dollars in our money.

But when it comes to caring for our own, for the 50 million Americans who can’t pay for good health insurance, the voices of greed, selfishness, division and fear want to tell us the funds are not sufficient. You can’t break and rob the bank and then say there is no money in the bank. You can’t say, it cost too much today knowing that it will cost even more tomorrow if you don’t fix it now. You can’t with integrity be a Senator or Representative with the best retirement and health care in the nation fight plans to help everyday Americans to need good health care. You can’t with integrity accept Social Security and Medicare which, in case you haven’t heard, are U.S. Government programs, and then go on television and say the Government ought not help others get health insurance. Something is terribly wrong with these positions.

Yes, in a democracy we ought to have a debate. But the debate ought to be logical. And it surely out not to based in lies and distortion. So we are here today to say we will not, cannot, and must not believe the distortions.

Health Care for Every American, Now.

That’s what we believe.

That’s what we want.

That’s what we are fighting for.

Too many Americans today are straining under the burden of two related trends: shrinking health care coverage and rising health care costs. Over the last decade, millions of Americans have found themselves uninsured, and millions more have become underinsured as the value of their coverage has declined. In the years 2008 – 2010 it is estimated that almost 6,000 people a day, or almost 7 million Americans total, will lose their health insurance. We must help our fellow Americans.

Dr. Martin Luther King also said 40 years ago: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

So, health care reform is not some kind of calculated socialism. It is common sense public policy. Tim Wise, a white social commentator, has said, “By allowing the right to throw around terms like ‘socialist’ to describe the President and ‘socialism’ to describe his….health care reform proposals without challenges is to ensure that the right will succeed in their demonization campaign…. Wise said, and I agree, this noise is about race. It is about "othering" a President.” This is what animates the every move of some of the poor and working people who get sucked in by the Palins and the Limbaugh fear mongering. Unless our Movement begins pushing back, and starts insisting that yes, the old days are gone, white hegemony is dead, and deserved its demise, and that all of us, Black, Brown AND white, will be better off for it, the chorus of white backlash will only grow louder. So too will it grow more effective at dividing and conquering the working people who would benefit -- all of them -- from a new direction.”

If caring for all the people is ‘socialist’ then Amos the prophet in the bible was a socialist when he said ‘Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.’ Isaiah was a socialist when he said ‘Lose the bands of wickedness and care for the poor among us.’ Jesus Christ, the non-profit prophet and healer, he was a socialist when he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, give sight to the blind, and healing to the broken hearted.” If insuring health care is socialist then Ralph Waldo Emerson was a socialist when he said, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

If working for a the just society that provides health care for all Americans is socialist, then the founding fathers were socialist; when they enumerated in the founding documents of this nation that the purpose of government was to work for the common good, not private prosperity alone.

Health care reform is not socialism. It is social justice and we must make this clear. We cannot allow the B.O.L. to dictate this debate. We cannot allow the three screamers—Mr. Beck, Mr. O’Rielly and Mr. Limbaugh—to set the terms of this important discussion. The BOL shout loud to try to drown out our voices of truth and compassion. That is why we gather and lift our voices to speak. And to Act. Health care for every American now.

We must take on every distortion and every the lie. When they try to say there is a death panel in the current proposal. No, we must say. There is not a death panel in the current proposal but there is a death panel in the current system.

The Death Panel is the discriminatory system now in place. The panel of insurance claims adjusters who deny claims. Those who denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Those who set the cost of insurance that forces people to choose between food, paying the rent, or health insurance. This Death Panel keeps one out of four Americans at the mercy of every illness or accident and every lost job. We must challenge those who are funded by insurance companies and the health care industries. Democracy NC gathered research from the Center of Responsive Politics and Federal Elections Commission, and listed the donations given to every member of Congress. Senator Richard Burr, for instance, leads the list receiving over 1 million, 600 thousand dollars from health care and insurance corporations. And we must say to him and every other elected official. No matter who gives you money, your job is to care for all the people. Help make a better life for all the people.

We must challenge Democratic Party candidates who run on a progressive agenda. Who say in the heat of campaign that they stand for health care reform. That say they stand with the late Lion of the Senate, the honorable Edward M. Kennedy who championed full health care reform and said, “Every American should have the opportunity to receive a quality education, a job that respects their dignity and protects their safety and health care that does not condemn those whose health is impaired to life of poverty and lost opportunity.”

We must challenge those who rode the coattails of President Obama, calling for health care reform, but somehow once they get elected try to move from being Lions that will fight for real change to being Blue Dogs, who sniff around for the easy compromise. We believe in bipartisan efforts but we don’t believe in a watered down bifurcated reform bill that doesn’t address the fundamental problems.

Why should we have to compomise on the moral rightness of health on every American? Senator Burr, Senator Hagan no matter whose money contributed or what color the dog, the donkey or the elephant is. Conservative or liberal we want health care for every American; this must be our cry We must be lions.

Before this debate ever began this year, we in the HKonJ Coalition said four years ago, Health Care for All. NC ought to provide its people with health insurance and prescription drugs, while funding public health programs to treat social diseases that plague Black and poor communities including HIV/AIDS, diseases caused by environmental pollution and warming, drugs, domestic violence, mental illness, diabetes, and obesity.

The NAACP has called for health reform for years. Our current system discriminates on the basis of race and class.

We know what works in America and bless all the people:

(1) Full health care coverage that is affordable to every individual, family and business which also provides coverage for pre-existing conditions; (2) Standard, comprehensive health care benefits that meet everyone’s needs from preventive to chronic care; (3) The choice of a private or public health care plan, which includes a new public health care “public option” that will provide a guaranteed backup which will always be there to ensure quality, affordable health care coverage no matter what; and (4) Equity in health care access, treatment, research, and resources to people and communities of color and stronger health services in low-income communities.

"Health Care, just like Education, is a fundamental human right in the 21st century in America."

Systemic denial of health care to the poor, to working people and people out of work, to the 50-100 million Americans who need health care the most, to people with pre-existing diseases is a sin. It's evil. It's wrong. It's un-just. It's not American. It's perpetuating a separate and unequal society. It's cementing a Jim Crow Health system in place for another century.

This is the United States of America. The richest country in the world, we want an American Health Care System--not a system that works for the rich, and is dysfunctional for everyone else. We want an American Health Care System--not a system that discriminates and excludes that picks and chooses who lives and who dies by the size of their bank account. The exclusive health system works fine for those with good jobs and big bank accounts.

The exclusive health care system belongs to them. But this is the United States of America. We need a United States of America Health Care System, the USA Health Care Plan. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand what America is. America is ours. America is all of us.

If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves, pray and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and heal the land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

We need a healing.

We need to turn from fear.

We need to turn from greed.

We need to turn from lies.

We need to turn from selfishness.

We need to turn from wicked ways.

We need a healing in the land.

Too many children are dying.

We need a healing in the land.

To many families are struggling.

Too many are scared to get sick, and can’t go to the doctor.

We need a healing in the land!

We don’t believe in social Darwinism, survival of the fitness.

We believe we are our brother’s keeper.

We believe we ought to do unto other as we would have them do unto us.

We believe that a great nation care for of its people.

We believe when we lift up the poor and lift up the hurting the whole nation gets elevated.

We believe that we reap what we sow.

If we sow compassion;

If we sow caring;

Then God will shed his grace on us,

And so this is no time for us to stand on the side line.

No time for us to be quiet.

We need a healing in the nation.

Let every politician hear our voice, health care for every American Now,

Go tell your friends; go tell your neighbor it’s time to stand, its time to fight!

We need a healing in America.

Health care, every American now.

Nothing will turn us back.

This the moral issue of our day.

Will love our foes, but we cannot follow their path.

We need a healing in the nation and we need it now!

If we act. If we stand. If we speak. God will use our actions and heal our land!

10 Tough Questions Answeredtag:typepad.com,2003:post-602183562008-12-19T11:06:12-05:002008-12-19T11:06:12-05:00WRAL.COM has posted "Ask Anything: 10 Questions with Rev. William Barber, president of the NC NAACP." The questions include: *why the NAACP still calls itself an organization of "colored people" *the continued relevance of the NAACP now that an African...Buie Knife

WRAL.COM has posted "Ask Anything: 10 Questions with Rev. William Barber, president of the NC NAACP." The questions include:

*why the NAACP still calls itself an organization of "colored people"

*the continued relevance of the NAACP now that an African American has been elected President of the United States

*why the NC State students who scrawled hate speech on a campus wall must be strongly disciplined

*the NAACP's role in the Duke lacrosse case

*why aggressive public advocacy, not simply quiet,
behind-the-scenes maneuvering and compromise, is an important role for
the NAACP

Why Johnston County Sheriff Bizzell Must Resigntag:typepad.com,2003:post-567818272008-10-01T16:49:00-04:002008-10-01T16:49:00-04:00Statement at Candlelight Vigil in Smithfield. Click for news coverage. Deuteronomy 15: For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and...Buie Knife
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><em>Statement at Candlelight Vigil in Smithfield. <a href="http://carolinajustice.typepad.com/hkonj/2008/09/coalition-calls.html">Click for news coverage. </a><br /><br />Deuteronomy 15: For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land. And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.<br /><br />Acts 10: But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.</em> </p>
<p>The Bible is clear that we must not be a community that mistreats people based on differences.&nbsp; If anything, Deuteronomy calls on us to remember that we are all immigrants one way or another.&nbsp; We are all different but we are all creations of God.&nbsp; The Book of Acts teaches us that we cannot call other people dirty, trashy, and unclean when from one blood God made all people. </p>
<p>We cannot call unclean what God has made.&nbsp; How can we put our hands on the Bible when we are sworn into public office and not try to live by what the pages say?&nbsp; </p>
<p>One North Carolina is the call of our state whether we are black, white, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. We are a part of one North Carolina.&nbsp; For our dear sheriff, or any elected official, to say what has been said about a whole nationality of people and to do it in a moment of thoughtful reflection, not in a blurp, is a violation of public office.&nbsp; We call on Sheriff Bizzell, as an act of love for him, to resign.&nbsp; </p><p>We believe he needs time to reflect and to grow beyond these feelings. And, he needs to show acts of repentance.
</p>
<p>If he had said this on a job to someone they would have a right to
sue him under federal law.&nbsp; If he had said this in a classroom the
principal would have removed him.&nbsp; If he had said this in the
legislature they would have censored him.&nbsp; If he had said this in a
courtroom, the judge would have held him in contempt.&nbsp; And, we believe
if he had been a black sheriff saying this about someone white, the
public outcry would have been deafening.&nbsp; </p>
<p>This is a praying time.&nbsp; Sheriff Bizzell’s actions should cause all
of us to look at the state of our community and even to repent for
being silent as we have while watching insults and injurious public
actions and public policy thrown at our Hispanic brothers and sisters
over and over again.&nbsp; This is not about public safety.&nbsp; It is not about
whether we want officers of the law to enforce the law. Wanting
officers to uphold the law is a given.&nbsp; </p>
<p>This is about public relations. This is about public trust. This is
about public responsibility to uphold a standard of service that is not
tainted with racist sentiment.&nbsp; This is about rhetoric gone wild.&nbsp; We
must know that officers of the law carry out and enforce the law
without bias or prejudice.&nbsp; That is why we come to pray and protest.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p>We come today in great hope that change will come.&nbsp; We call on the
elected officials around this state not to do like the local county
officials and prop up these actions.&nbsp; The issue is not even whether we
forgive as Christians. We forgive&nbsp; our enemies. But wholeness cannot
come until there are concrete actions of repentance.&nbsp; So let us pray.</p></div>
Election to National NAACP Board: Interview with WRAL-TVtag:typepad.com,2003:post-533021062008-07-27T01:29:55-04:002008-07-27T01:29:55-04:00Buie Knife

Candidate for NAACP National Boardtag:typepad.com,2003:post-526923262008-07-14T16:34:18-04:002008-07-14T16:34:18-04:00Buie Knife
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qAmKz5VNs30&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qAmKz5VNs30&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div>
On the Passing of Jesse Helmstag:typepad.com,2003:post-522963562008-07-05T14:33:01-04:002008-07-05T14:33:01-04:00We in the Civil Rights community had deep and stark differences with Senator Jesse Helms’ public policy positions. He opposed fundamental constitutional rights and the implementation of civil rights protections. But we are all human. Senator Helms was a member...Buie Knife

We in the Civil Rights community had deep and stark differences with Senator Jesse Helms’ public policy positions. He opposed fundamental constitutional rights and the implementation of civil rights protections.

But we are all human. Senator Helms was a member of the human race, the human family, and as moral people, we are required to love even those who oppose us. We pray for his family and those he leaves behind in bereavement.

When Will We Say 'ENOUGH' to Racial Injustice and Prosecutorial Misconduct?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-504782142008-05-27T17:36:58-04:002008-05-27T17:36:58-04:00Video from WRAL.com. More related news at www.naacpnc.org. When will our Government -- our Governor, Council of State, Legislature, Criminal Justice System, and the Courts -- face the facts that every thinking person knows are true? Our criminal justice system...Buie Knife
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/video/2952272/?version=embedded"></script><script type="text/javascript"> width=330; height=280; wral_insert_video_player_2952272(width,height); </script></p>
<p><em><strong>Video from WRAL.com</strong></em>. More related news at <a href="http://carolinajustice.typepad.com/ncnaacp/2008/05/seeking-an-end.html">www.naacpnc.org</a>.</p>
<p>When will our Government -- our Governor, Council of State, Legislature, Criminal Justice System, and the Courts -- face the facts that every thinking person knows are true?&nbsp; Our criminal justice system discriminates against Black men.&nbsp; </p>
<p>Just a few weeks ago another Black man barely escaped execution by our State Government because of gross mistakes and prejudice in our criminal “justice” system.&nbsp; That makes three North Carolina Black men in the past five months who, but for the grace of God, would have been wrongly executed in our name.&nbsp; </p>
<p>How long will we let these injustices in our name continue?&nbsp; When will we say Enough?&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p>Must we expose wrongful convictions, wrongful appellate decisions, wasted decades on death row for Black men every month?&nbsp; Every week?&nbsp; &nbsp;When will we say Enough?</p><p>The NAACP lawyer who broke the color line on the U.S. Supreme Court only two score years ago, Justice Thurgood Marshall, wrote: &quot;No matter how careful courts are, the possibility of perjured testimony, mistaken honest testimony, and human error remain all too real.&nbsp; We have no way of judging how many innocent persons have been executed, but we can be certain that there were some.&quot;</p>
<p>Justice Marshall was mincing his words. I will not.&nbsp; There is a built-in stereotype in the criminal justice system that works against Black men.&nbsp; Hysterical public opinion, whipped up by the media, dictates that there are some cases in which the State is pressured to find a perpetrator -- any perpetrator.&nbsp; In Wilson, in 2004, the State relied upon the perjured testimony of a troubled&nbsp; young man and almost put James Johnson on trial for his life.&nbsp; It held James in jail for 39 months, trying to wear him and his lawyers down to plead guilty to crimes James did not commit.&nbsp; Fortunately James and his family found the strength to hold on until, finally, the State admitted it had been “mistaken.”&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p>In the past six months, three of the four human beings freed from death rows across the country shortly before they were due to be executed are Black men from North Carolina.&nbsp; There, but for the Grace of God, go I.&nbsp; Since the death penalty was reinstated nationally in 1976, there have been 129 human beings who, on the eves of their executions in their respective States, have been found not guilty and freed. I don’t believe it is a mere coincidence that three out of the last four, Numbers 126, 128 and 129 in the Death Penalty Information Center’s (DPIC) long list, are victims of the North Carolina criminal justice system.&nbsp; These three children of God are now free, after spending over a dozen of their most productive years on death row.&nbsp; Here are summaries of their encounters with North Carolina’s criminal justice system, thanks to the DPIC: </p>
<p><strong>126. Jonathon Hoffman</strong> The State of North Carolina, acting in our name, convicted Mr. Hoffman in 1995. After 12 years on death row, the State dismissed all charges against Mr. Hoffman on Dec. 11, 2007.&nbsp; &nbsp;He won a new trial in 2004 because information favorable to him had not been disclosed to his lawyers, the judge, or the jury during his trial.&nbsp; The prosecutor made a deal with the main witness against Hoffman that federal charges against him would be dropped if he testified against Hoffman.&nbsp; The witness later recanted his false testimony. </p>
<p><strong>128. <a href="http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2669008/">Glen Edward Chapman</a></strong> The State of North Carolina, acting in our name, convicted Mr. Chapman in 1994. After 14 years on death row, the State dismissed all charges against Mr.Chapman on&nbsp; April 2, 2008.<a href="http://jimbuie.blogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/27/9055immatephoto220x165.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=220,height=165,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false"><img width="100" height="75" border="0" alt="9055immatephoto220x165" title="9055immatephoto220x165" src="http://jimbuie.blogs.com/barber/images/2008/05/27/9055immatephoto220x165.jpg" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; float: left;" /></a> Chapman was sentenced to death for the 1992 murders of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley.&nbsp; In 2007, Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin granted Chapman a new trial, citing withheld evidence, “lost, misplaced or destroyed” documents, the use of weak, circumstantial evidence, false testimony by the lead investigator, and ineffective assistance of defense counsel. There was new information from a forensic pathologist that raised doubts as to whether Conley’s death was a homicide or caused by an overdose of drugs. Judge Ervin found fault with Chapman’s defense attorneys at the original trial in 1994, one of whom has been disciplined by the North Carolina State Bar. The other lawyer drank 12 shots of alcohol a day during another death penalty trial.&nbsp; His client during that trial, Ronald Frye, was executed in 2001. <br /><strong><br /><a href="http://jimbuie.blogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/27/11668levonjones600x450.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=600,height=450,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false"><img width="100" height="75" border="0" alt="11668levonjones600x450" title="11668levonjones600x450" src="http://jimbuie.blogs.com/barber/images/2008/05/27/11668levonjones600x450.jpg" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; float: left;" /></a>
129. <a href="http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2835121/">Levon &quot;Bo&quot; Jones</a> </strong> The State of North Carolina, acting in our name, convicted Mr. Jones in 1993. After 15 years on death row, the State dismissed all charges against Mr. Jones on May 2, 2008.&nbsp; &nbsp;Two years ago the U.S. District Court overturned Jones's conviction or robbing and shooting a bootlegger, but the Duplin prosecutor held him in jail for two more years until releasing him.&nbsp; The U.S. Court found Jones' lawyers were &quot;constitutionally deficient&quot; in defending him at trial, noting they failed to research the history and credibility of the prosecution's star witness. The Court found: &quot;Given the weakness of the prosecution's case and its heavy reliance on the testimony of Lovely Lorden, there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.&quot;&nbsp; In April 2008, Jones's new lawyers filed an affidavit in which Lorden said a detective coached her on what to say, she collected $4,000 from the governor's office for offering the clues that led to the arrest of Jones, and that &quot;Much of what I testified to was simply not true.&quot;&nbsp; D.A. Dewey Hudson dropped all charges 10 days before the trial was due to begin in the May, 2008.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>The Criminal Justice Sub-System for Black Men</strong></p>
<p>There are two criminal justice systems in the United States.&nbsp; One for the rich.&nbsp; One for the poor.&nbsp; The one for the poor has a sub-system for the poor Black man because his life is not worth as much as a poor White man to many people in the criminal justice system.&nbsp; He is seen as a “scumbag.”&nbsp; If the Black man is accused of killing a White person, the prosecutor uses the death penalty and the prospect of a virtually all-white jury to bargain for his life.&nbsp; The Black defendant and his lawyers know that he has a slim chance before such a jury which has been taught since childhood to be afraid of him.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; </p>
<p><strong>Death Penalty Is Part of a Biased System</strong></p>
<p>I'm against the death penalty because I am a Christian.&nbsp; I can find no New Testament license for embracing death.&nbsp; Death is the antithesis to our faith.&nbsp; Jesus—the light and hope and founder of our Faith--was killed by capital punishment.&nbsp; How can I embrace, how can we embrace the systemic instrument used against Jesus and many of his followers?&nbsp; &nbsp;How can we embrace this system of vengeance and retaliation, when Jesus never sought death as retaliation for what was done to Him.&nbsp; </p>
<p>I did not learn this from ivory towers and philosophical debates.&nbsp; I learned it in the trenches of pastoral work.&nbsp; The first death I presided over was the death of a young college coed in Raleigh.&nbsp; Her parents were members of a church I presided over in Virginia.&nbsp; They showed me the way.&nbsp; They made the Word we preach about love and forgiveness come alive in flesh.&nbsp; Despite the hurt and hellish nature of what had been done to them, they made it clear they did not want their daughter’s murderer to suffer the penalty of death.</p>
<p>I met this issue again, while teaching ethics at Wesleyan College.&nbsp; As my class debated the pros and cons of the death penalty a young white student testified of her family's suffering and her family's witness for life.&nbsp; </p>
<p>When reporters ask me, “Rev. Barber, Where is your concern for the victim of a violent murder?” I reply, “My faith does not allow me to care about the victim and not care about the perpetrator.&nbsp; Nor does it allow me to care about the perpetrator and not care about the victim.&quot;</p>
<p>This is the strangeness of Christian love; it does not allow schizophrenic compassion. It is this strange Christian love that African American people have had for parts of this country for years, in spite of the horrendous violence heaped upon us.</p>
<p>Paul wrote from his prison cells, back to the church, back to the people of faith, while serving a death sentence, declaring that he was praying for them to have all of the strength, endurance, and patience they needed for the long journey of faith.</p>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; <p><strong>We Still Need Strength for the Long Journey</strong></p>
<p>Families who have had the terrible experience of having a loved one taking someone else's life; those families need strength for the journey.&nbsp; They need strength to repent where maybe their love one has not repented.&nbsp; They need strength to embrace family members' victimized by their family members.&nbsp; Families who know their loved ones have been wrongly convicted or wrongly charged by a broken criminal justice system, like the families of Darryl Hunt, the families of Alan Gell, the families of Glen Chapman, the families of James Johnson, the families of Bo Jones, the families of Jonathan Hoffman.&nbsp; They need strength to keeping hoping, to keep fighting for the truth.</p>
<p>We all need strength for the journey to go up against a system which will cover itself at all cost.&nbsp; We know the system creates un-thinking, un-caring people who engage in prosecutorial misconduct.&nbsp; We need strength to keep presenting our case before the powers that be.&nbsp; We need strength to raise high the call: Repeal the death penalty.&nbsp; </p>
<p>We need strength to keep pouring out the undeniable facts that African Americans disproportionately are sentenced with the death penalty, which means it has a racist application.&nbsp; And that poor people in general disproportionately receive the death penalty which means its application is another form of classism.&nbsp; We need strength to continue to challenge the fear of politicians have of the ultra-right which, which threatens to brand them soft on crime if they take the righteous and moral position that the death penalty should be ended.&nbsp; Thank you.</p>
<p>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;*************************</p>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<p><strong>Join With Us in this Journey&nbsp; </strong>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; </p>
<p>The NAACP was founded almost 100 years ago to stop the lynching of Black Men in the South.&nbsp; The NAACP has always recognized the deeply embedded racial prejudice within the criminal justice system, and has worked diligently to bring that fact into the hearts of people of good will throughout the society.&nbsp; In the past three years, the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP has led a mighty coalition of over 85 organizations and churches in two Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HK on J) events, to put before the Legislators who meet on Jones Street our People’s Agenda.&nbsp; High on that Agenda is the Repeal of the Death Penalty in North Carolina.&nbsp; </p>
<p>This May and June, 2008, the Legislature will consider the Racial Justice Act, that passed the House last year.&nbsp; It is a key aspect of our efforts to Repeal the Death Penalty.&nbsp; We will be bringing hundreds of grassroots volunteer people’s lobbyists to Jones Street on May 28th, to remind their legislators they should vote for the Racial Justice Act.&nbsp; </p>
<p>You don’t need to come to Jones Street.&nbsp; Just call your local NAACP Branch, and find out how to call your legislators in your home district, and let them know how you want them to represent you.&nbsp; </p>
<p>If you are not a member of your local NAACP Branch, we welcome you to join.&nbsp; The NAACP, a multi-racial organization, has led the fight to rid our society of racial discrimination and hatred for 99 years.&nbsp; Join now.&nbsp; You can call our State office on its toll free number, for more information about your Local Branch, the People of Color Lobbying Day, and how to persuade your legislator to vote for the Racial Justice Act.&nbsp; Thank you.</p></div>